Smartphones: Examining the Harmful and Beneficial Aspects (MGMT20135)

This argumentative essay, written for CQUniversity's MGMT20135 course, explores the proposition that smartphones cause more harm than good. The paper begins by tracing the evolution of smartphones and their multifaceted capabilities, highlighting their role in communication, entertainment, and information access. However, it argues that these benefits are overshadowed by the detrimental effects on traditional practices, physical and mental health, and social interactions. The essay details how smartphone usage contributes to addiction, eye strain, neck pain, and other health issues, while also impacting societal norms, such as the decline of traditional media consumption and face-to-face interactions. The author acknowledges counterarguments, such as smartphones' role in corporate industry and education, while emphasizing the need to limit smartphone use, especially among young people. The paper also discusses the Australian government's initiatives to regulate smartphone use, including time limits for children and monitoring systems for drivers. The essay concludes by urging a balanced approach to technology, promoting responsible usage to mitigate the negative impacts and preserve a quality lifestyle.

Running Head: SMARTPHONES DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD
SMARTPHONES DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author Note:

1SMARTPHONES DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD
Phones were invented to enhance the way of human connectivity through
communication. Every individual entity of this entire world is involved in an invisible
competition. To win this competition every human being are engaged with some kind of
profession (Hatuka & Toch, 2016). This is the reason people are scattered all over the globe
departing from the family members. Phones are the way to enhance the mode of
communication and smartphones made it a device used for multipurpose computing with
mobility. It was given the name ‘Angler’ at the initial stage of its invention. As an amazing
invention of technology it infuses various facilities including voice call, video call, serves the
purpose of entertainment with social media platforms. It has broken down the limit of
ordinary cell phones that only serves for voice calling and text messages. Recently a
smartphone has the capacity to perform numerous activity apart from the mentioned ones. It
has gained the capability of a computer in a miniature version. The mode of touch is used to
enhance the user interface and user experience (Han & Cho, 2016). The extraordinary
features of smartphones establish this device as more than a phone. No doubt, technology has
eased up the lifestyle of common people; it has some dark phases however. This paper
presents an argument on the agenda about the beneficial and harmful aspects of smartphones.
This particular paper is supporting the statement that smartphones are harmful while being
useful at the same point of time. It will discuss about the dark side of this smart innovation of
technology. It will provide enough evidence for this argument. Additionally, this paper will
demonstrate the probable steps can be taken to improve the technology without harming the
humankind.
Firstly, emergence of smartphones is omitting many traditional daily practices from
the livelihood. During the traditional era, the first task in the morning was reading a
newspaper with a cup of tea. A common man grows up seeing this practise performed by his
predecessors. In this era of smartphones, the practice of newspaper reading is restricted at a

2SMARTPHONES DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD
certain level. There are various e-news sites where people can read daily news staying at
home or outside. Reading books and newspapers are symbols of traditional aristocracy, which
is getting an extinct feature of the recent society. Secondly, the human physical and mental
health is getting highly impacted by the unbarred use of smartphones. Using smartphones is
addictive in nature (Samaha & Hawi, 2016). According to many users, spending time using
smartphones either for important and unimportant purpose is addictive. People spend hours
and hours in communicating with smartphones. The short length of blue light waves are
extremely harmful for brains that can leads to diseases including tumour and cancers. Beside
this, constantly using the smartphone lowering down the head leads to shoulder and neck
pain. Continuous texting in smartphones lead to arthritis of thumb that include tender feeling
at the base of the thumb. This disease also familiar with the term osteoarthritis. Texting or
speaking over the phone while driving is one of the main reasons of car accidents (Haug et
al., 2015). The screen of the smartphones is full of germs that leads to various skin problems
including acne and other rashes. Even the nervous system also affects by the extreme use of
smartphones as a result people can develop Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. The symptom of this
syndrome is compressed elbow that leads a sensational feeling in the ring and little finger.
Continuous staring at the screen of the smartphones affects the eyesight also. If studied
properly the list of the negative impacts of smartphones will grow longer and longer.
However, people those are standing against of the discussed statement have their own
perspective of supporting agendas. Smartphone has open up a new dimension in the corporate
industry (Demirci, Akgönül & Akpinar, 2015). Emergence of smartphones has flourished the
company revenue of application development agencies. Along with this, smartphones has
great impact on education system. Using the internet on smartphone is easy enough to use for
the students and the educators also. People can collect information about health, society,

3SMARTPHONES DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD
current economic situation by surfing the internet daily. People also state that spending few
hours with the smartphones can reduce the stress level (Hubert et al., 2017).
Emergence of technology has simplified the lifestyle of human being with enormous
amount of negative impacts. However, people should concentrate on the matter to resolve the
negative issues of smartphones. To avoid addiction people must limit the use of smartphones
especially for the young generation (Elhai et al., 2017). Government should take initiatives to
make a general regulation for the citizens of the country. The government of Australia
records various rules and restriction on the use of smartphone for different age group of
people. Technology has simplified the lifestyle surely; however, it has decreased the quality
of human lives. According to Australian guidelines, children crossing the age of thirteen can
own their own smart devices (Coenen et al., 2015). The health care department observed that
a good amount of parents using smartphones as a way to engage their kids for sometimes.
Teenaged children are performing digital screen based activities for more than forty-four
hours weekly. Toddlers and pre-schoolers perform these activities approximately fourteen
hours weekly. To resolve the issues evoked by smartphone use Australian government is
taking many initiatives. They have limited the use of smart gadgets for a scheduled time per
day for teenagers it is not more than one hour. To monitor the use of smartphones during
driving many states (Example Canberra) has adopted new technology. It is technology to
monitor the drivers used by the road safety department (Amarasinghe et al., 2015).
Dermatological study mentions some simple steps to avoid the curable health related
problems. To avoid any skin related problems including acne or rashes, wipe the screen
before use. Avoid long conversation over the phone. In case of long conversations, opt for
earphones instead of direct contact with the skin. Avoid long messaging on social media
application or better to perform some kind of finger exercise in short intervals.

4SMARTPHONES DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD
In conclusion, it can be said that, people must adopt the use of technology at a certain
extent. Smartphone connects people staying apart at the same time they are departing the
members staying close. A common scenario at any family gatherings is that people are
spending more time on their own devices instead of verbal communication. Hence, people
should differentiate the use and misuse of technology for a quality lifestyle. Parents must
schedule their works to manage some time out for their kids to play with instead of keeping
them engaged with smartphones. Make the limited use of smartphones a habit while staying
at home. The stress is given on limitation on smartphone use for children, as they will carry
forward the generation in future. Smartphones are no doubt a great creation in this digital
world. It has features including artificial intelligence that has both positive and negative
impact upon human health and psychology. Limiting the digital practice from human lives
will be a healthy practice to adopt for a greater future. Instead of connecting smartphones are
actually showing the real picture of isolated from the loved ones.

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References
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